Colorado, Utah, Idaho

The day after my last post I went for a hike with my friends near Crested Butte, CO. The wildflowers and mountain scenery were amazing. 

Columbine was everywhere!

Mike and Molly. 
Tina and Molly. (And the newest member of the Ogburn family, due mid-September!)

Flowers and mountains.

Another hiker's dog. 

That evening I got back in the car to keep moving west. I stopped briefly at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I got there just before the sun went down. 

View from the first lookout point on the south rim. 

Sunset over the canyon. 

After sunset and dinner in the park, it was back to the car for more driving. I slept that night in a campground near Canyonlands National Park. 

Mesa Arch

After my brief visit to the park, I hit the road again. I drove through the rest of Utah and most of Idaho with a few stops here and there for naps. I stopped at the Sierra Trading Post outlet just outside of Boise, ID yesterday. I was flipping through a book they had on Idaho rivers and saw that I was only about a 20 minute drive from a great playspot on the Payette River. My AC doesn’t work and it was 104 degrees in Boise, so I decided some time in the river was just what I needed. The playspot is an artificial rapid that was created to bypass a dam. It’s a couple nice class II+ drops with a great surfing hole at the bottom. I was the only kayaker there at the time, but there were several local folks with boogie boards. The hole is perfect for surfing with a boogie board. After a few runs in the boat I borrowed a boogie board and I didn’t get back in my boat for the rest of the afternoon. 

A local kid taking his first turn on the surfing wave. 

Another local boogie board surfer. 

After the river I started driving west, across the rest of Idaho, through a corner of Oregon and into Washington. Shortly after crossing into Washington, around 10pm last night, I pulled over at a rest area. I planned to rest for a few minutes. I fell asleep in the front seat of my car and woke up at 7am thismorning. I guess I was tired! 

The Red, Chicago, Colorado

A few days after my last post I left my parents’ house and drove to the Red River Gorge, where I climbed for two days. Below are a few pictures from a day in Muir Valley. 

Me on Annie the Annihilator (pic by LJ)

LJ on Jesus Wept 

John on Jesus Wept

After the Red I drove to southern Indiana, just across the river from Louisville, to visit my friend Mickey. The next day I drove up to Chicago. I spent much of Sunday on the beach. The weather was perfect. The day on the beach made me really miss Chicago (at least Chicago in the summer). On Monday, after a jog on the lakefront, I stopped by the office to tie up a few loose ends and to say another goodbye to my co-workers. 

After dinner with my friend Julie on Monday evening, I hit the road. I’m sure there are many great things to see and do between Chicago and Denver, but I really just wanted to get to Colorado. I drove for a few hours on Monday night, then crashed in the car and got up and pushed the rest of the way to Denver. 

The sunset shortly after I got into Colorado. I was basically still in the “might as well still be Nebraska” part of Colorado, but, as the picture shows, the mountains were starting to come into view far in the distance as the sun set. 

In Denver I stayed with Claire, a friend from law school. I also caught up with Amy, who’s a friend from high school, and Joe and Kacie, who are friends from Virginia Tech. And the best surprise was my law school friend Stephanie who just happened to be visiting some friends in Denver at the same time. 

Me and Claire

Stephanie and me grabbing a beer at a bar near Coors Field. Stephanie cracked me up when she ordered her beer. I ordered a 90 Shilling, a beer brewed in Fort Collins. Stephanie also wanted to try a local beer...

Me: Have you tried Fat Tire?

Stephanie: That’s Mexican

Me and Waiter siumltaneously: Uhh, no it’s not. It’s brewed in Fort Collins. 

Stephanie: Oh, I’m confusing it with Red Stripe. 

Me and Waiter simultaneously: Uhh, actually that's Jamaican. 

Stephanie. Hmmmm. Well, I really like Blue Moon. Is there something local that’s similar? 

Me: It’s a coors product, so it is local. 

Waiter (pointing at Coors Field): In fact, it was first served at Coors Field...

I’ve missed you Stephanie!! 

Then I hit the road and drove up to Boulder where I met up with Laura, an old friend from high school whom I hadn’t seen in about 10 years. We went out for a quick climbing trip after she got off work. Climbing after work is rather foreign to me. Working at a law firm meant that I usually didn’t do much after work during the week. And when you live in Chicago, climbing entails a long drive or a trip to O’Hare. We hit up Boulder Canyon for a couple of quick climbs before dinner in town. 

On Friday I climbed with Nancy, whom I met earlier this year at the Red. We did a few routes at Boulder Canyon, then went bouldering near the Flatirons. 

Nancy on a traverse problem on Cloud Shadow

On Saturday Laura and I went and climbed at Eldorado Canyon in the morning, rested during the midday heat, and went back out to climb some more in the early evening at Boulder Canyon. 

This morning I left Boulder and drove to Crested Butte. My friends Mike and Tina live in Carbondale, CO and they’re visiting Crested Butte with some of Mike’s family. 

My first blog post ever!

Welcome to my blog! I never imagined I'd be a blogger; but it seems like a good way to let friends know where I am and to share some pictures. So here goes... 

If you’re reading this, you probably know me and what I’m doing. But, in case you don’t, I’m on a bit of an extended vacation. I got laid off this past spring. Sooner or later I need to get serious about my search for a new job. But in the meantime I’m taking some time to travel around the country to climb, hike, bike, kayak, catch up with friends, and just have fun doing all the things I won't have much time for once I'm working again. 

I’m a little late starting this blog as I've been on the road for a while already. I left Chicago in April. I drove a big yellow rental truck with all my stuff home to my parents' house in Blacksburg, VA. After spending some time with the family I loaded up the old jeep and hit the road!

My sweet ride is a 1993 Cherokee with 162k miles on it. I thought about selling the jeep when I moved to Chicago a couple years ago since I didn't really need a car there. But I couldn't bring myself to part with it (and nobody in their right mind would buy it). So it's been sitting in my parents' or a friend's driveway for a couple years. Now we're reunited and hitting the road! Let's hope it holds up as major repairs or having to buy another car would cut pretty deeply into my travel funds. 

My first destination was the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. It's an area with miles of sandstone cliffs, mostly 100-200 feet tall. It's an amazing climbing area, especially if you like steeply overhanging rock faces. I stayed there for most of May and part of June. During my time at the Red I camped at Miguel’s Pizza in Slade, KY (population 38, not including the climbers camped at Miguel’s). 

Miguel's Pizza. Great food, and climbers can camp out back for $2/night. 

This was home for about 6 weeks. It rained almost non-stop for my first 3 weeks, so the extra tarp above the tent came in handy. That’s my road bike under the tarp to the left of the tent. The roads around the Red are great for road biking. They’re well maintained, with rolling hills and very little traffic. 

Congested? Really? I'll take it. 

After I left the Red I went back to Blacksburg. After a couple days there I left for a five-day bike trip with my mom. We rode in Bike Virginia, an annual bike tour that attracts about 2000 riders. The ride is in a different part of the commonwealth each year. This year's route covered about 300 miles around Charlottesville, Culpeper and Orange. 

After Bike Virginia, I paid a quick visit to the Goshen Scout Reservation where I worked in the summer of 1998. Then I headed to the New River Gorge for a few days of climbing. Then it was back to Blacksburg. 

Now it’s time to hit the road again and head west. Stay tuned to see where I end up! Now that I’ve started this blog I have motivation to take more pictures!